Nobu - Dubai

Nobu Nobu Nobu.  After hearing about Nobu for years, I finally went to Nobu in Dubai.  I wanted to get the deluxe omakase because I doubted I would be back anytime soon.  The waiter, however, talked me out of Omakase Deluxe for Omakase (regular), reasoning that if this was my first Nobu experience the regular Omakase meal would provide a great overview of the restaurant.  I'm never opposed to saving a few dollars, and I appreciate waiters that do not recommend the most expensive thing on a menu, so I went with it.  I was a little disappointed in the end, but more to come...

Take a gander at that giant lobster!

I always feel like I'm in a pretentious place when I have to pay for still water.  Nobu was no exception - they brought me out Fiji - at least it's a personal favorite.  Water is water, after all, but Acqua Panna and Fiji are the two best bottled waters out there.  I digress.


First course. Yellowtail, salsa, cucumber, fried seaweed. The fried seaweed looked cool and tasted good.  Very tasty bites, but a bit unremarkable. Fresh, clean, but I will forget about that dish. (Being a little behind on blog posts, I can tell you I did actually forget about this dish... even if it does look like art.)

Second course. Salmon roll, salad roll, ginger roll, and miso dressing. Note the lack of rice in the salmon roll.  I love riceless sushi - like this, or wrapped with cucumber.  I'm a sucker for it.  The Miso "dressing" was light and sweet and delicious. Then Anchovies were a burst of flavor and nice texture contrast (see them fused together - they were like a cracker). The micro greens were flavorful, and the salmon roll was delicate and delicious too. (I did remember this dish, and I can still taste that pickled veg in my mouth today.)

Third course. Wood roasted oven Sole with Jalepeno sauce. Perfect crispy skin on the sole. Yum.  The sauce was good, light and fulfilling (though it didn't have much zip), and the flecks of flower on the top were a nice touch. It was the best Sole I've eaten, but not the best rendition of dishes of this type.

Fourth course. Alaskan black cod, with miso marinade. This is a Nobu house specialty. The sweet miso sauce very similar to the sauce on the second plate. This dish was very good, but I've had better marinated black cod cheeks at Maneki, a 100 year old Japanese restaurant in Seattle.  Maybe I am being a bit picky, but I was expecting real magic.  (It does look good, huh?)

Fifth course. Sizzling Beef Teppanyaki (on a personal stone plate) with mixed mushrooms. I was told this would be a Wagyu course on the Deluxe Omakase. I wish I'd ordered that now. The ju was so delicious that I could have poured it on a bowl of rice and eaten it like a porridge. A super rich, heart attack portage. Mmmm.  This was the first truly remarkable dish of the evening, and it would have been all the more spectacular with Wagyu. A word to the wise, order one shade under what you want, the beef continues to cook on the plate and Middle Easterners always overcook their meats. I ordered mine rare, and it ended up being a perfect mid-rare.

Sixth course. Sushi and miso. To say this was an incredibly sparing portion may do injustice to other sparing portions out there. Spicy tuna, salmon, seabass, and sweet shrimp were served. The Rice was perfectly cooked - not a trivial accomplishment. The spicy tuna, a scallion, Jalapeno, tuna roll was a tasty riff on the classic, but needed more spice for me. The miso soup had a hidden surprise, two pieces of clam at the bottom. While that was nice, this was by no means the best miso soup I've ever eaten. Again, nice, but not memorable. (Again, I'd literally forgotten about it.)

Seventh course.  "Pre-dessert" Tiramisu mochi. Shockingly delicious (since I don't generally like tiramisu and hate the flavor of coffee).  It was much more subtle than I expected with almost fruity notes. The consistency was not the best, but the ratio of mochi to ice cream was on the mark.

Eighth course. The finale was a warm chocolate souffle, a la a molten chocolate cake. The sorbet, a banana one, WAS one of the best I'd had and the dessert was a very successful end to the meal.  A real high note.  

Overall.  The wait staff was attentive and excellent.  Without a doubt they raised the quality of my experience.  Watching on during the preparation of dozens of sushi pieces and rolls was great fun while I sat at the sushi bar.  The ingredients looked fresh and of excellent quality, but the portions were stingy, small, and the price tag was high. I'd recommend the restaurant for impressing someone, like a prospective client, or for a trendy, modern Japanese atmosphere and special occasion. You can get numerous hard-to-find (in Dubai) luxurious ingredients like Otoro, Wagyu, etc.  This said, if you are not willing to shell out the money for specialty Japanese fare (and by specialty, I mean said hard to find items), you should probably go to somewhere more reasonably priced.


Nobu - Dubai
Atlantis (Hotel)
The Palm (Jumeirah)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
971.4.426.2626
4 of 5 (only 3 in its class - aka fine dining or fancy Japanese)

San Fernando Roasted Chicken

One evening rather late (9 pm), my wife and I decided to try San Fernando Roasted Chicken.  As you can see, it's well liked on Yelp, though under-reviewed for Seattle (PS - Not Beacon Hill, Central District).  It's a Peruvian-style pollo a la brasa joint.  Well, sadly, one hour before closing there was no more pollo (a la brasa)!  So, rather than that, I ordered a arroz con pollo and lomo saltado.

Pollo

The arroz con pollo was good, nice flavors, nice little onion salad (it can't be called a regular salad), slightly dry pollo.  I felt gypped that there were no beans with the rice though.  The lomo was also ok, though a little dry, the fries were thick and delicious (though a little undersalted).  I thought it was good enough to give another shot, my wife declared she had enough and thought they didn't measure up.  We were sad to have missed the roasted chicken, but it is curious that with an hour of service left they had none available.


We might give them a redo, we might not, but since their prices are high for this style of restaurant, we certainly won't be running back.

Lomo

San Fernando Roasted Chicken
900 Rainier Avenue S.
Seattle, WA 98144
(206) 331-3763
2.5 of 5

Square Lotus

Square Lotus in Bellevue, Washington was an average Vietnamese place that seemed to cater to vegetarians.  It had a Four Star rating on Yelp (but in our opinion was not deserving).  The place had a very strip-mally decor down to faux brick wall paper, wobbly tables, and plates with the Square Lotus logo.

We ordered a few things, summer rolls, tropic rolls, stir fried soft egg noodles with beef (spicy style), and  super pho bowl (pho tai bo).  

Summer Rolls

Summer Rolls: They were a few herbs on the inside away from perfection, but they were very well done here. I prefer the fried wonton to be rolled in the middle, but to their credit they did include them flattened and in small pieces in the center.

Tropic Rolls

Tropic Rolls. We loved the combination of flavors and grilled chicken, but this roll was also missing a few herbs.  It was a nice variation from the classic summer roll, but was a little bland.

Stir Fried Noodles with Beef

Stir Fried Soft Egg Noodles with Beef - Spicy.  The portion was very small compared to other noodle or Chinese places.  The flavors were subtle, they don't jump out and slap you and "very very spicy" turned into barely spicy when it hit the tablet.  That was a tremendous disappointment.  The dish was good, in an average sort of way, but at over $9 I would not order them again.

Super Pho Bowl. Pho Tai (Bo).  The Pho broth was light, flavorful, and meaty, and the bowl is spacious (a personal preference I have come to view as vital).  The dish was very meaty when ordering the "super," but we can't comment on the regular (and judging by the noodles I suspect it may be very different).  The broth to noodles to meat ration was, therefore, quite on point if you order the Super Pho.  On the dig side, the broth was quite cloudy, which my wife assumed was due to not pre-boiling the beef bones before adding them to the pot with the other components (a quick was to make cloudy Pho broth at home).   

The biggest problem was really the poor, poor service.  Although we appeared to catch them during their lunch, the staff was not attentive at all.  We also got no hoisin sauce, crushed red pepper, or anything else out on the table (nor was it brought to us for quite some time after we had our food).  It was average, but with so many Vietnamese places in the Seattle area, there is no reason to overpay for noodles and get good (but not great) Pho with bad service.  I suspect if you are a vegetarian, you like this restaurant more  because they clearly cater to you with a large portion of the menu highlighted as Vegetarian.  If I were you though, I'd keep looking, because there are better places out there that also have vegetarian fare...



Square Lotus Fine Vietnamese & Vegetarian Cuisine
3540 Factoria Blvd SE # A
Bellevue, WA 98006
(425) 679-0680

2.5 of 5

Japonessa: Sushi Cocina

My wife and a small group of family and friends decided to visit the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) for the first Thursday (free Thursday) and then visit neighboring Japonessa for dinner. We heard they had a pretty liberal happy hour and were excited to give a new, highly regarded sushi joint a shot.

First, let me provide the happy hour hours for Japonessa. All day up until 6:30 pm in the restaurant, and 8 pm at the sushi bar. It starts again at 10 pm throughout the restaurant.

Now, we understood the happy hour was after 8 pm, and set a reservation for 8:30 pm. Miss. Their menu (link) does not feature any "traditional" sushi rolls, California, Alaska, etc etc. They'll make any of those for you if you ask, but with so many specials, why not give them a shot. We ordered all house specials:

Salmon sampler (white king, red king, Atlantic king and sockeye)
-Hotate
-Perfect Gentleman (spicy tuna, cucumber, avocado, yamagobo, kaiware, sprouts, cilantro, topped with 7 spice seared albacore, chili garlic soy, scallions, and jalapeno)
-Orange Crush
-Tango de Mango
-California Crush
-Street Fighter ii
-The Mediterranean
-Paraiso Tropical
-Spicy Redhead
-Tarantula

So, the wait staff actually forgot to bring the hotate sushi. That's another miss, this time on Japonessa's account. Second, the wait staff seemed to buzz all around, but they didn't seem too interested in explaining things or making recommendations outside the most expensive rolls on the menu. So service, C+.  (Sidebar- this place is quite popular and I'd recommend a reservation.)

The fusion aspect of this joint, after all it's Japonessa: Sushi Cocina, wasn't present... compared to, for example, SushiSamba (where I've eaten in Chicago, IL). So let's throw out the fusion aspect and just talk sushi. It was good, even very good. The ingredients were tasty, the combinations were imaginative, and the neta (innards)-rice ratio was generous, as was the size of the specialty rolls. But they were pricey.  We thought the Paraiso Tropical and Tarantula were standouts, as was the Street Fighter ii and Perfect Gentelman (very close to the same thing).  The white king salmon was the absolute best of the sampler.

My main complaint was the sushi rice, which fell apart routinely.  It not only did not "add" to the greatness, but it significantly detracted.  My suspicion is that not only was it not made with the right consistency to stand up to the various sauces and innards, but it may have been prepped substantially earlier than its use - making it a little "bleh" and a bit "dried out."

Overall, it was a pleasant experience, but not Seattle's best and a bit overrated and pricey.  The specials were good, ingredients fresh, but with the so-so service, and rice, it stands a head above the average sushi places in town but not among the titans.  We'll be back, but for happy hour...

Japonessa
1400 1st Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 971-7979
3.5 stars